XYZ Films has closed a raft of deals for Czech filmmaker Robert Hloz’s science-fiction feature “Restore Point,” which is part of the company’s recently launched New Visions slate of genre films.
The film has been sold to Germany and Switzerland (Plaion); Scandinavia (NonStop); France (The Jokers); and Australia/New Zealand (Umbrella). Several other territories are in active negotiations, while XYZ is also confirmed to handle the U.S. release of the film.
“Restore Point” is set in the year 2041, when the gaps in social and economic inequality have left the world on the brink. A breakthrough in science has given humanity the ability to bring victims of a violent crime back to life by backing up their brain every two days. This affords an ambitious young detective the opportunity to solve a case of a murdered couple when the restoration team is able to bring one of them back.
The film is directed by Hloz and produced by Jan Kallista. According to the production team, “Restore Point” is the first Czech sci-fi film in roughly forty years — a notable gap, they add, given the influence that Czech voices have had on the development of the genre. It was Czech author Karel Čapek who was the first to introduce the word “robot” to mean an artificial being in a play produced a century ago.
The deals on “Restore Point” come at the tail end of a busy Cannes for XYZ, which launched its New Visions slate of genre films with Zarrar Kahn’s Pakistani-Canadian horror “In Flames,” which played in Directors’ Fortnight. The New Visions initiative is designed to spotlight bold new voices in world cinema. Other titles on the slate include the psychological thriller “Reckoner,” starring Christina Hendricks. “Restore Point” was selected as part of the Cannes Market’s Fantastic 7 lineup of upcoming genre projects.
XYZ recently said in a statement that New Visions will serve as a curated collection of films that “exists to discover and support the next generation of great filmmakers at the inception of their career, and to give established talents room to do something smaller, more intimate, or challenging outside of the usual box of independent filmmaking.”
The company’s head of international acquisitions, Todd Brown, added: “What we’re saying with the New Visions slate is that no matter how XYZ may continue to grow and change we are never going to allow ourselves to lose our roots. With this new initiative we are very proactively creating a space for our next generation of talent to shine, a space for both new talent and established voices looking to challenge and redefine themselves.”